[kazinator]

> The good news is that it doesn’t matter if we find we have married the wrong person.

Yes, it does! OMG, this so laughably wrong. (The whole article.)

Who you marry is a big, big determiner of happiness.

It's better to be single than to marry the wrong person.

[nostrademons]

That line is speaking at a different level than your response.

The point - which the article goes on to elaborate on in the next few paragraphs - is that happiness is a choice, not a consequence. Every person is going to have flaws, and they will have little quirks that drive you nuts. Whether the relationship succeeds or not depends on how you react to those flaws. Do disagreements spiral out of control, with each person getting angrier and taking it out on their partner, making them angrier in turn? Or do they melt away with a decision to compromise and accept reality?

The article's point is that you should own your emotions instead of letting them own you. The example they start with is two people who do whatever their emotions tell them to without thought of the consequences. The example they end with is two people who understand their emotions but also understand that they don't have to react to their first impulse.

[hrktb]

I more or less agree with the parent. The article poses a pessimistic approach to mariage as a sane approach, but I find it utterly depressing to consider a whole life married to someone you have to make constant painful efforts to live with.

Of course you can, but from the outside you'll be miserable. You are master of your emotions, and can still make do with the situation. But you could have married someone you are more compatible with and only need slight efforts every here and there.

Everyone has flaws and in any couple there is a need to make adjustments, but the size of these adjustments will still wildly vary wether you take care to choose someone that fits you or not.

Saying "nobody's perfect so why care ?" is a thing nobody in their sane mind would take seriously.

[kazinator]

Of course "right person" doesn't mean "flawless person"!

That is a complete strawman.

> you should own your emotions instead of letting them own you.

Those who let their emotions own them are the ones who tend settle for the wrong person. "Sure he drinks, spends money like crazy and flirts with every beautiful woman he sees ... but I LOVE him".

[nostrademons]

I think, then, that you and the article are talking past each other. There's nothing in the article that says one should settle for he who "drinks, spends money like crazy, and flirts with every beautiful woman he sees". The examples given are "The failure of one particular partner to save us from our grief and melancholy is not an argument against that person" and "The person who is best suited to us is not the person who shares our every taste (he or she doesn’t exist), but the person who can negotiate differences in taste intelligently", neither of which I see as particularly big sins.

Indeed, I'm a bit baffled by the commenters (in this subthread and elsewhere) that are interpreting the article's main point as "have no standards". It is not contradictory to have high standards and also realize that no partner is going to complete us or make us happy all the time. It just means realizing that momentary unhappiness is a part of life, and that it's worth forgiving the little things if the big things are in place.

[matwood]

> The point - which the article goes on to elaborate on in the next few paragraphs - is that happiness is a choice, not a consequence.

This was also the conclusion of a pretty interesting book I recently read - The Geography of Bliss.

[gumby]

> It's better to be single than to marry the wrong person

For some people. The path you like is not necessarily optimal for me.

Many marriages survive on companionship and familiarity.

My great grandparents were married for almost 90 years (Indian arranged kid marriage) and they were both centenarians. They seemed happy enough (but how could I tell as a kid). Maybe some of the things they lived through (e.g. two wars) seemed like bigger deals than the (inevitable) conflicts in their marriage?

[refurb]

I think what the author was trying to say is that every person is the wrong person to marry if you judge them by your expectations of what they should bring to the relationship.

[alashley]

I think interpersonal relationships is one of the places where it matters most to have expectations and standards. There will be trade-offs, but at the end of the day you need to be able to add to someone's life and vice versa. This whole low/no expectations thing can keep people in some pretty toxic situations. And if you have expectations, you also need to be able to extend yourself to meet the expectations of others. Its give and take.

[Goronmon]

This whole low/no expectations thing can keep people in some pretty toxic situations.

It's not really about low/no expectations. It's about not letting smaller, less important things impact the larger, more important things. So, one person sometimes not putting down the toilet seat could either be a momentary frustration that is sometimes mentioned but largely ignored, or used instead as a catalyst for arguments and an example of how that person is lazy and uncaring.

[alashley]

Agreed!

[refurb]

This was the expectation that the author believes makes everyone the wrong person to marry: that a perfect being exists who can meet all our needs and satisfy our every yearning

[kazinator]

Even if that is true, we can somehow rank the wrongs on a scale and go with the least wrong.

[hackaflocka]

> It's better to be single than to marry the wrong person.

Or date them. Or live with them.